Goody, just what I need — more dating advice

The new rules

I went from country club wife and mother of high school students to a single, 39-year-old "cougar." In this weekly feature, I will share with you all the mind-boggling, head-scratching, is-this-someone's-idea-of-a-joke moments from my so-called single life. Consider this your private invitation to my tremendous learning curve…

How mysterious!

Yep, the girls from The Rules are back, with updated info for our post-1995 digital world of Facebook, Twitter and texting. Joy. In Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating, Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider have updated their material for the 21st century. Or have they?

Ignoring texts

Common sense would mandate that updating the guy you want to date every 20 seconds with a mind-numbing text is not a good idea. If you've been around a guy for 10 minutes, you know that they are annoyed by most forms of communication — thus, keep it brief. So when Ellen and Sherrie tell us to not text a guy with “getting a haircut,” it kind of makes us say, “Huh? Do women really do that?” From there, they encourage women to ignore texts, and that by incorporating a little restraint, men will be forced to ask us out because they have to learn more about us.

For most of us, it's hard for us to ignore a text we're not getting. We'll start there. It's day one stuff that you shouldn't text to the point of being annoying, but if a guy texts you, does ignoring him really create an air of mystery, or does it just hurt his feelings or piss him off? And in our instant gratification society, will he just move on to the girl who doesn't ignore him?

Baggage claim

What seems to be missing from the old fashioned dating advice that we get from our mothers (which is exactly what this is, just updated for social media) is the fact that women don't meet and marry at 18 anymore. Women and the men they want to date all have baggage from past relationships that didn't work out. For example, I've had two men cheat on me. Both ignored texts and answered when they damn well felt like it (read: when they were done with the other women). If a man has been cheated on, might he have a knee-jerk reaction to a very delayed or ignored text? Might he wonder why someone he's just getting interested in can't give him the time of day?

Mysterious or game playing?

I'm a real straightforward kind of girl. I loathe inefficiency and I don't have time for anything other than stark honesty. Not everyone can handle it. And it goes a long way in explaining why I stink at dating. I refuse to play games.

I picture myself trying to be mysterious. I see myself in a low-cut, clingy, floor-length red dress with super red lipstick on and my long blonde hair coiffed like I'm from the '50s. I'm wearing elbow length black gloves and smoking a cigarette. I picture myself giving a man a mysterious look and realize I would look like I have to go to the bathroom. Then I picture myself with broccoli in my teeth and choking on the cigarette smoke while I turn my ankle in the high heels I'm wearing. I picture my lunch backing up on me and belching like a sailor accidently and trying to cover it up with a “mysterious” and coy giggle. Yeah, for now, I'll stick to my rules — games are for children.